Imagine a world of cheap or even free marketing…no manpower, no campaign or strategies, no it is not utopia but could become a reality. Blog—the layman’s Web log where information is uncut, free flowing and reaches anyone could be the answer.

Be it the Baghdad blogger giving inside information from Iraq, the news blog during the 2004 presidential elections or Joe Smith bashing up his rival, blogs have come to stay.

While blogs have caught the frenzy of many CEO’s and top executives, it has also entered the world of news. Traditional Web columns and e-newsletters have moved to a blog type columns allowing instant comments and feedback. When you blog, people read. But what happens when you get blogged. Aeroprise, a mobile workflow management company found itself in a middle of heavy Web traffic!

Recently, the Mobile Enterprise Alliance newsletter blogged about Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, an Aeroprise customer and featured a case study about using Aeroprise products. The e-newsletter was sent to all subscribers, and Aeroprise Website witnessed over 400 downloads of that particular case study. Imagine now a blog that connects all those business development and marketing guys trying hard to sell. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to connect?

Research indicated that with rising popularity the number of blogs have gone up to 50 million across the globe. The popularity of blogs have reached India as well. Estimates show around 100,000 India-centric blogs. With Google, MSN and Live Journal all offering free blogging tools the numbers are set to increase.

Rajesh Setty, Chairman of Cignex Technologies, says “Blogging is a very efficient way to deliver bite sized messages to a very large audience.” Setty doesn’t necessarily blog about work. His blog titled Life Beyond Code, gives out his exact idea behind blogging. Anand Chandrasekaran, Co-Founder and Director of Marketing at Aeroprise, guest blogs about movies!

“In my role as head of marketing for Aeroprise, I wanted to understand how blogs would impact our evangelism and market outreach efforts as we communicated to customers, partners and the industry at large,” says Chandrasekaran, about being blogged by the MEA newsletter.

“But eventually I hope to write more with friends and co-workers about our experiences with building Aeroprise, building products and working with partners to build a profitable company in the exciting enterprise mobility market,” he adds.

“A lot of global companies have found great compromises with the Internet, company Intranets, partner extranets, exchanges are all innovations that put information out there that was traditionally guarded—leading to increased employee productivity. I’m sure blogs will find their place as well and organizations will find the right tradeoffs to make,” adds Chandrasekaran.

While both Chandrasekaran and Setty accept blogs are a great way to network neither accept that it is the only way. “Blogs won’t be a networking tool for CEOs in the near future. They will be a tool for building/enhancing their own brand and their company’s brand,” says Setty.

Just as the MEA blogged about Aeroprise customers creating indirect awareness about Aeroprise; Setty says, “Life Beyond Code is a personal blog and is not affiliated with Cignex; but most of my readers know of my association with Cignex.”

Whether indirect awareness or direct measurable marketing, blogs will create value in unexpected ways to promote a company, brand or even individual creativity.